Had it with aol after many years!

mardatha

I've been with aol for 9 years, I pay £18 a month and a lot of people pay much less. BT are showering me with emails offering it for £10, my daughter is with Tiscali and says its much better, and then for 2 days we were unable to get internet at all due to a problem that aol were dealing with, which almost ended in a divorce. :rolleyes:
They have been ok through the years but I think maybe now there are others out there who are as good and a bit cheaper - we are on pension credit and every penny counts..
Anybody got a really great ISP who they're really happy with and have been with for some time? If you check Which mag they give you people I've never heard of, plus I live out in the sticks really remote--would that matter?
Thank god I got online today, I've been dying to post this since yesterday afternoon !:D

mouseymousey99

Mardatha - did you have problems with aol yesterday too? We couldn't get it to work for most of the afternoon/evening.

skylight

We have been with AOL and my Mum with Tiscali - I think they are both naff!

Mum works from home a lot and in the last few months Tiscali have had an awful lot of downtime which just messes things up for her. I too was working from home years ago when we were with AOL, and their downtime was appalling.

We are both with Sky now - and I have not had a single down day in the 2 years we have had it.

penrhyn

OP you first need to check what is available in your area £18 for AOL sounds as if you are getting the service via BT. If an ISP has unbundled your exchange (LLU) then you may be able to get a cheaper offer.
Go onto the Samknows website and enter your exchange details, look at the ISPs down the left ahnd side of the page, and maybe post the results so you can get peoples views.

PS The company that came out top in the Which? report is a not an ISP only a reseller, and its winning status was the result of around 40 respondants.

mardatha

ok this is what it says on Samknows ---

Congratulations, you are in a broadband enabled area.
However, there is another service on your phone line (e.g. ADSL, LLU, DACS, etc) that would prevent you from ordering a new ADSL connection.The following services are available in your location: BT Wholesale ADSL
BT Wholesale ADSL Max

penrhyn

No LLU then, all services via BT so you won't get the best rates.
Sky Connect would cost you £17/month for example.
O2 seems to be well thought of but I don't have any personal experience of them.
I'd give AOL a call enquire about getting your MAC (Migration Authorisation Code)and then see what their retentions department will offer you to stay.

mardatha

ok will do. I had meant to try this a while back but didnt have the nerve...this will give me it ! We just got rid of sky as we are trying to cut down, so that's a no go. Many thanks ! x

Poppy9

I am with AOL and have been for about 7 years. The last 12 months have been awful with their downtime and I'm really fed up so will change when my current contract ends if there is no improvement.

I rang AOL a few years ago to ask for my MAC code and had a £9.99 deal plus a couple of free months. Everytime their is significant downtime (i.e. a day or so) I ring and get a free month. I also asked them outright for a free wireless router last year without threatening to leave and they said yes without me having to argue for it or threaten to leave. I just said they offered it to new customers and as a long standing customer I wished to have one.

Also if your phone line is BT look on BT online and you can get free evening and weekend calls for £0. If you are currently paying for it then just order online and it automatically cancels the fee paying service and replaces with the free service. Also BT privacy will give you free caller ID, again you sign up on line.

macman

I think you will find that BT's £10 offer is for the first 3 months only, then it will go up? And probably on an 18 month contract. If you have an o2 mobile you can get a discount off their broadband of about a fiver. For an 02 LLU exchange this is a rate of £7.40pm, However since you are not LLU it would only be £17.13. Still a slight saving and I find their customer service and reliability very good at present.
A non LLU service that you might look at is Namesco (used to be NDO). Their up to 8MB service is £14.95, or £10.95 up for slower speeds. They have a UK tech support and customer service and I have found them also reliable.

mardatha

ok thanks !

Little_Miss_Boden

I phoned AOL today to ask to cancel too. We had major problems last week too - internet was down for a whole 24 hours.

I think the problems have been with their merger with talktalk/carphonewarehouse as prior to the last 6-12 months we had no problems with them at all.
I phoned and they said they would reduce it to 9.99 amonth (12 month min contract though) and would put an engineer in touch in case there was a problem with the line.

I'll remember to phone next times there are any problems and see if I can get a free month!